Describing the Indescribable

This is the result of an anonymous writing session done at the end of a month-long Alexander Technique workshop. There were approximately 60 people of various levels. While receiving "hands on" guidance from the teachers, all were challenged to answer questions such as:

How can you describe what you are sensing in words?

Can you describe what no one else has ever described before?

Some people assumed that what they were experiencing could not be described. Those people moved into drawing when they couldn't come up with satisfying enough words for description. What came to mind for quite a few of them was how great artists expressed qualities of feeling directly with the motions and qualities of their abstract art. These people documented the relative change in their movements directly by allowing these characteristics and quality of their new physical freedom to emerge on paper, without being translated into words. Others experimented with using their non-dominant hand to draw or write with, wondering if it was the habit of writing itself that was limiting their ability to imagine what to say.

Some people pointed out:
It doesn't matter what word you pick to describe this experience, as long as we all can agree on what to name it. The more words you come up with, the more people who will understand, one word can't stand for such a personal experience. Unspecified words are the most useful, because the experience is always so new, you are not the same each time you experiment

Some people made up their own words: Release is "Real-ease"Deciding to go in a different direction at the last moment is "Differectioning" Feeling inside yourself for results or losing awareness of your external environment while your attention is elsewhere so that your eyes and body stiffen and stare should be called "Swallowing your Eyes."
There should be a word for shrinking from, avoiding or pulling away from the challenge of a constructive experience. The word for rigidity or stiffness should be the same word for not having awareness; how about stiff-un-see, Stifuncy?

People used terms that combined or fused opposites: I felt cognitive/body synergy My lightness seems to contain power and strength I'm opening outwards as my sense of ego and agenda is dissolving, as if habit is my sense of self and goals that I don't need I feel as if my muscles are yawning, but without the stretch of tension.

The greatest number of investigators rose to the occasion by using metaphor. While there are a few descriptions that defy categorization that came mostly from musicians, a few general areas emerged as common ground.

The ELECTRICAL describers:
I felt I was becoming rewired, connecting up in both directions.
It felt like lights being switched on in me, as more areas of my coordination entered awareness.
I saw myself in a rare clear moment, like glancing at Los Angeles, CA on an unusual smog free night. I could perceive inside of all of me at once, like a whole body video X-ray.
I felt like a giant pinball machine; as more areas of my body entered my attention at the same time, the lights would go on and these areas became activated.
I got to see myself going two ways at once, like highway traffic lights moving continuously along a mapped pathway in both directions from the air.
Moving freer feels like a diagonal charge, a little explosion that fires a move already started by a thought.
It was like my lights were coming on as I came loose, like one of those Mag-lite flashlights that has to be unscrewed to turn on.
The me that I was familiar with became transparent, but I was still there as if my ego had disappeared. Everything looked smaller as if I had grown up, probably because my height was changing.

The ORGANIC, nature folks said:
Suddenly, I was a fast-action tree fern sprouting a new stalk. I spiraled, in a whip action
I felt cellular activity growing inside of me, as if it became activated by my expanding attention. Parts of my old habits were disorganized pieces floating volcanic, as I began to coalesce into a new shape.
I was a tornado unwinding.
I felt like a spring opening up
Felt as if I was a bellows on a concertina, or a puffed up blowfish. Only there seemed to be no limit as to how much air I could take in.

The LIQUID model:
I was fulfilled to the edges of my skin, as if buoyancy was provided by the density of the air, something that had been there all along without me noticing.
I get a weird undulation, a wave action that supports me as I start to move.
I'm being silly putty, melting.
I feel as if WD-40 (a silicone lubricating fluid for machinery) just got squirted in all my rough spots.

Then there were some originals such as:
If my sensing awareness is a sieve, and all the holes are like apertures on a camera, what happens when I free my movements is all the apetures open up. So they don't get over-stimulated and tired, closing down, my brain links the openings up into new patterns continuously, and that's where discoveries probably come from.

It's as if I have invisible strings on all my joints and I'm the puppet of some kind of angelic spirit, who is in better control than I am, taking all the pressure away, instead of my habitual stressed out ways of doing it.

My focus changed so that sound sprang from all around me. Fear and uncertainty and emotional concerns lost importance, and I knew how and what I wanted to do, even though I was feeling strange.

I was just present, as though I was by myself even though sixty other people in the class are here.

Objects loomed huge in my range of vision rather than me looking out of myself to peer at something.

I thought a slow-motion video camera had turned on behind my eyes. Things felt as weird as if the video was running in reverse during a dinner scene. New stuff that made complete sense popped up out of nowhere.

My senses intensified as I tuned into a sympathetic harmonic vibration in my muscles, like tuning into a radio station and getting clearer reception.

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Alexander Technique is the study of one's own reactions and responses. The goal is to increase the capacity to choose appropriately, beyond self-imposed limitations of habit. It's taught by exploring mannerisms used during movement.

Alexander Technique is useful for those who want to continuously improve a specific skill, art or sport. It is also useful to help recover former capacity to move freely and balance easily. Beyond the time it takes for lessons to learn it, no exercises or daily hour is required for practicing, only extra thought & experimentation.